


Then We Fight, Together

by Chewie13



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, B/c I'm salty and she should have, Ersa Survives, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, No OCC-ness, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Threats of Violence, hopefully, mentions of suicide/suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26602954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chewie13/pseuds/Chewie13
Summary: What if Ersa survived her encounter with Dervahl? What if Aloy was the reason why?
Relationships: Aloy & Ersa (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, here I go.
> 
> I'm doing it. I'm writing this story. It's gonna be a wild ride but I'm stubborn so my doubt can take its useless self and live in a dumpster for all I care. To write is to be comfortable with vulnerability and I am going to practice that until I drop. From enjoyment, not exhaustion ideally. 
> 
> Disclaimer: The first chapter, and maybe the second, are setting up the foundation for how this story begins, therefore there's some scene-setting and changes. I don't just want to re-hash canon because that'd be boring, but there were some small changes I made in scenes at the beginning of the story that impact how the rest of it evolves into something new, hence this first chapter serves as a way to set that stage up. My hope is that it doesn't feel/come across as too much exposition or rushed or needless. I'm framing Aloy around this new set of circumstances and the world that'll form from it, so you've been warned XD. 
> 
> Enjoy!

_The best things in life are often unexpected_

~anon

* * *

**Aloy POV**

Aloy was in a sour mood. 

The kind that came with scowls and gritted teeth. Clenched hands and an irritation that had people avoiding the path she treaded from the gates of Meridian.

“The gates are closed,” the guard had said. 

“With the Captain missing, outsiders are not permitted to enter the city,” he had said. 

“Especially not a Nora,” came the sneer. 

Asking after Erend did little more than earn her a scoff, mocking just like his sneer. Admitting she could help in the search only deepened it.

“Vice-Captain Erend has no time nor need for a Nora. He has more important matters to attend to.” He raked over her form, stopping on her garb and sniffing.

Aloy wasn’t needlessly violent, but the look on his face had her debating if it was worth it. 

The plumage that sat atop his head was his only redeeming quality, but the look in his eyes reminded her of Resh. The obstinance, a figure abusing its authority, or at least relishing in it, and she left the gates of Meridian with all the decorum of being an outcast taught her.

Namely none, but her steady march had people moving out of her way, even more so when she mounted the Strider that sat huddled near the stalled carts and irate tradesmen. The folk eyeing it and her with obvious suspicion and fascination in equal measure and she hoped the guard at the gate was watching as she strode off.

It was petty, but some small part of her curled in satisfaction at the thought of her, “a Nora,” sitting atop a machine while the guard could do nothing but watch. That her, “a Nora,” was in a position above him in some way. That she, “a Nora,” knew more than he did.

“Not that it helped,” she reminded herself, bitter.

The feeling didn’t last long though. 

And neither did the self-righteous bit of arrogance that had her preening on her steed.

It wasn’t a good look on her. The taste of it stale and warning of future hardship should she indulge it too much. She took the reminder to heart, promised to not forget the little moment at the gate, and kept on. 

If Meridian was out of the question, then doing something useful was her next step. 

Olin and Meridian could wait, she chided herself. For awhile. 

He wouldn’t get off for the murders of Rost or the massacre at The Proving that easily.

But she was willing to bide her time if it meant she’d have an upper hand when she did next encounter him.

And she would. Encounter him again, that is. 

If Rost has helped her in anything, it was in honing her tenacity into a fine point. The tip of an arrow could barely hold a flame to the drive that had Aloy doggedly pursuing her goals. 

Just because her destination had changed didn’t mean her goal did.

No, she’d find him. Without question.

But until then, Aloy figured she had one of two options. 

In the area was a Tallneck, her route taking her further east into what Captain Balahn had called the Sun-Steps. An eastern area of the Sundom known for its yawning canyons and rocky outcrops. Arches made from stone and rivers carved through the land like veins, all of it visible as she had descended from Daytower.

The Focus at her ear saw fit to note the Tallneck then and the signal it was broadcasting, but it was impossible not to see the hulking machine and its flat hull as it patrolled in the distance. 

It was impossible not to see everything, honestly.

The view was breath-taking in much the same way the Sacred Land was when Aloy first saw it in all its breadth. 

But she had moved on.

Priorities had to be checked and the Tallneck came second to Olin.

Now it didn’t, and Aloy could override it as she saw fit.

But she had a second, more tempting option.

Aloy was lacking in information. A thought that compounded on her already sour temperament, but the truth was rarely enjoyable. In an attempt to bridge the gap that Meridian now created, she figured she should try getting information from somewhere else.

Thanks to a kinder Carja guard at Morning’s Watch, she now knew that a settlement existed in the region.

Free Heap.

A lone, Oseram settlement that set up shop next to a mound of metal so deep they had barely put a dent in it despite the years they’d spent already forging its material into tradable crafts.

Olin was an Oseram. 

An explorer, or so he’d said. A delver.

It was a long shot, but when the time to choose her route came, she went right, towards Free Heap.

The call of Olin’s whereabouts still more tempting than the schematics and logistics the Tallneck offered.

Besides, it’d be there for later. 

Needs over wants and Olin's location was a need, a must in the raging storm that brewed in her brain. Curiosity benched in favor of following her pursuits, so if the dust billowed a little harder at her increased, and still mighty sour pace, then so be it.

* * *

In hindsight, Aloy should have prepared herself for the absolute experience that was Petra Forgewoman.

Upon arrival, Aloy had been too caught up in the girth of the Oseram settlement to notice the woman who stood at its height and center.

Free Heap sat on a hill that watched over the roads below. Her Strider racing up to the front gate before settling into mining the dirt as she entered the settlement. 

Forge-black smoke billowed from the smokestack at its head, but Aloy got the sense that Free Heap moved as one massive cog. Heavily plated cranes carried lumber overhead as automated hammers pounded malleable metals into shape. The sound carrying through the space as a water wheel kept the process going. She resisted to urge to duck more than once.

Everything had a job though. A place. Even the people.

A merchant had set up shop, a burly fellow with tattoos across his bare chest despite the chill in the air, just below the smokestack. He let her browse over his product, puffing a bit as she commented on the quality of his weaponry, but ultimately she bought some potions and waved goodbye.

The rest of the town was just as welcoming, if not gruff, at her sudden arrival, which was more than she could say when compared to the Carja capital.

Some chuckled at the noticeable toll the constant hammering set upon her. The deep thump echoing through her and she rubbed her arms to the mirth of a few townsfolk. Another saw fit to share a campfire with her as she packed the potions away. Jovial the word she’d use to describe the bubbling woman and the inventions she spoke of.

It was refreshing, if anything. To be treated like she was worth talking to.

That was until she ascended the stone steps toward the center hut, Aloy met with a rigid back hunched over a sizable maw. A retrofitted canister fitted with machine parts and the hands that were piecing it together, wire by wire. 

Careful in their work, but not in their words when the woman stood, gave Aloy a once over, and said, “I’ve calluses older than you,” to which Aloy stared at for a single second before promptly responding. 

“I’ve calluses enough, if you want to test me,” all teeth with no heat and the woman cracked a grin as sharp as the cock of her hip. 

Petra Forgewoman was her name, and she was all woman and all Oseram, as Aloy soon found out. She was experienced despite her appearance and poked fun with a prodding Aloy wasn’t quite used to but returned in kind. It was amidst this banter that Aloy found her sour mood easing into something pleasant. The tension she carried from Meridian falling away in the company of the Oseram and her blunt attitude.

It was then, with Aloy chancing a glance at the heap in the mountain, the heap the settlement was so graciously named after, that Petra spoke again.

“It’s been overrun,” she supplied around the workbench in front of her. “We’ve been chased out of our own claim.” 

Aloy frowned, still staring at the heap. The scaffolding looming high in the canyon despite the haze clinging to the air. 

“You don’t look overrun,” and they didn’t act it either, but Petra’s hands paused in their work to face her again. 

“Machines are crafty, flame hair. Their noses better than yours, better than even mine. We cracked a new deposit open and they were ready. Scrappers claimed what they could and bandits saw fit to claim the rest,” said as if that was the law of the land. For the Oseram, maybe it was.

Aloy looked to the beast of a weapon on the workbench. “That only for show then?”

“Our batteries lie in the camp the bandits muscled into.” Petra gestured to the faint smoke rising from the eastern side of the heap. A small trail mostly shadowed by the canyon, but she could see it from their perch and then an idea hit Aloy.

“I can clear the Scrappers and the bandits for you,” a flash of enthusiasm lacing her words. Enough so that a wary look found its way to Petra’s features.

“Name your price.” 

“I’m looking for someone named Olin. A delver. You heard of him?”

“I’ve met him,” she says after a beat. 

“You know where he is?”

“I don’t.” Aloy raised an eyebrow at her. “Don’t give me that look, girl. We traded on occasion. His face hasn’t been seen around the heap in ages.”

Aloy studied her face, then sighed. Petra wasn’t lying. Petra wasn’t the lying type, but her answer had Aloy scowling regardless.

It was worth a shot. 

“I’ll clear the heap and be back by dusk,” because Petra delivered, even if it wasn’t helpful.

There was a hint of approval in the forgewoman’s gaze as Aloy trudged into the scrap pile.

Her sour mood fully returned, but between bandits, scrappers, and a mod kit for her bows, it didn’t last long.

She returned ahead of schedule, proud of her haul, until a brisk order met her on the bridge that connected the town to its source of livelihood. Her feet stalled as Petra gave directions like the town was on fire.

She soon found it was, or would be. The bandits didn’t take kindly to Aloy’s persuasive offer of leaving, a herd of them, all in red and black and similar to ants, reared their head from the northern gate and Aloy found Petra in seconds. The batteries handed off and the Oseram Cannon was born.

“Christened,” Petra corrected her with a wild grin, dropping the hefty weapon into her arms. She showed her the firing mechanism, had her point, and Aloy was on her own.

The bandits didn’t stand a chance.

Well, they weren’t standing at all, really.

The Oseram Cannon was every bit the beast Aloy thought it was. It lobbed enough bombs that there wasn’t much left afterward, and what was retreated with a pathetic amount of rage that she and Petra shared a laugh over.

As did the rest of the town.

They got their scrap pile back and with it came a boisterous amount of celebration. It was barely evening and food and drink were passed around aplenty. Forges forgotten in favor of the warmth they could offer each other.

All of it felt rather tame to Aloy. It wasn’t, but she suspected the bustle of celebrating Oseram could become something more if given the chance. Of that, Aloy was sure, but she was also sure she heard groaning coming from the town's edge, easy to hear from her more private space on the wall, and she almost, almost didn’t seek it out.

Rost also taught her about people. About sex and their desire and Aloy had none. None to act on and no wish to see it, but there was a pained note to the sound and she couldn’t help herself.

Her Focus came into view, its array lighting up her sightline and highlighting the world around her in a breadth of bright color. People milling about, machines grazing in the distance, and a lone form in the dust just beyond the gates.

At first, she thought it was a bandit. Missed and crawling about the dirt to survive, but a bandit didn’t usually wear Oseram armor. Didn’t look the part of a forgeman, so when she eventually approached and saw torn lapels, his arm cradling his chest and the flayed pieces of flesh he was holding up, she shouted loud for Petra.

A brisk call answered her back and now, certain the woman was coming, Aloy got to work.

“Hold still,” she ordered him as she reached for her pouch. Her feet resting in red but she had bandages at the ready and was more than willing to use them. His wounds leaked slower for the arm over his torso, but the puddle beneath her feet was a sign that he had little if any time left.

“What’s your name,” she asked as her fingers closed around a swath of wraps. Intent on using them but a hand closed around her own, tight and bruising, and she paused. 

“Hakurt,” he wheezed once their eyes met. Hazy but focused enough to stare at her, to plead his words to her listening ears. “Help them. Pitchcliff. Glinthawks. They won’t survive.”

She raised her hand and set it on his own, his grip still tight as she said, “Not if I have anything to say about it.” Earnest in her promise and, as if sensing so, he let go. His hand caught in its slow slide to the floor as the stuttering in his chest ceased. 

Death wasn’t new to Aloy, but it wasn’t pleasant either. She disliked suffering. She hated cruelty.

But death was inevitable, and peaceful when it could be.

The grateful smile on the dead man's lips said as much.

“Pitchcliff is north of here, flame hair,” Petra said after a beat. Aloy noted the unpleasant tilt to her mouth but if she was further fazed she didn’t show it. “We’ll hold the body for his brother.”

“You knew him?”

“He and his brother often trade lumber for our scrap. Name’s Ralert, the village ‘leader.’” 

Despite the hearty snort Petra gave, Aloy still nodded in appreciation before giving a loud whistle. “Thanks, Petra. I’ll see you around.”

“I bet you will,” her knowing reply as the Strider came to a galloping stop in front of Aloy. 

In one motion, she was on its back and riding away from Free Heap to the sound of laughter under a murky cloud of smoke.

If that wasn’t fitting, she didn’t know what could be.

* * *

It takes her till morn to reach Pitchcliff, and it’s to the sound of razor talons in lethal dives upon scores of battered Oseram. 

The bright gleam of red upon the sky, a demon with wings, and Aloy would’ve taken time to admire the elegance that Glinthawks attacked with but she was too busy diving off her Strider in a narrow miss of sharp metal at her back. It hit her mount instead and it gave a distressed whine as it buckled and eventually stilled. Her arrows were notched by the time she came out of her own roll, hissing with blaze as she fired, and the machine came down in a crash of sparks that the Oseram descended upon. 

It went like this until the last Glinthawk gracelessly collided with a mound of wood and boulders. A terrible screech of metal until the sweep of hammers put it out of its misery. 

Aloy would give it to them, the Oseram were hardy. Dependable and blunt, and Pitchcliff appeared to be both so why had Hakurt asked for help?

It wasn't until she looked closer, beneath the grime and ash that she saw weary faces and bruised bodies. An air of tired that clung to the settlement as she entered and only deepened when she asked after Ralert. The town mayor, apparently, but his mention was met with pinched expressions and stilted words.

When she finally found him, she could guess why.

If Petra could be described as a woman who led with certainty and focus, who was capable, then Ralert could only be described as lacking in comparison.

Where Petra preferred actions and results, of which were usually in her favor if Aloy wagered a guess, then Ralert's decision to cast blame with no foreseeable proof was foolish and the likely cause for the ire his fellow townsfolk. 

His words were clipped, spitting as he insisted that the Carja were behind the attacks. They had to be. Nevermind he couldn't figure out how or why and it was amidst his endless rant that she saw fit to interrupt him, patience already wearing thin, “Your brother sent for help.”

“That traitor!” He whirled with more spit. “I told him to stay put! Where is he?” Aloy hadn’t even seen the man breathe yet, but he was full of hot air and ready to continue.

“He’s dead,” she delivered as fast as possible. Level, but she wasn’t about to listen to this anymore. “His body is with Petra at Free Heap.”

He made a noise of discontent, his body deflating at the news. Something mournful passed through his face, had him quiet, and Aloy stood there and let him find his bearings before she spoke again.

“Hakurt asked for help before he died. That's what I'm here for. If the Glinthawks are the problem, I could look into why they're here? Why they keep coming back?”

The mayor took a deep breath, shoulders heavy with a grief Aloy could recognize. “You a tracker,” he asked in a tone that matched the muted sight of the village below.

“I can be,” she admitted with a shrug. 

“Then find the source of this problem. I’ll pay, but hammer to steel, there’ll be a Carja behind this. I know it.” A vow bathed in violence and Aloy hid her dislike behind a nod.

He turned out to be right though.

A Carja by the name of Shahavad thought tinkering with technology for the sake of his shard pouch was a good idea. One Aloy thoroughly shot down with all the power her glare could hold.

He talked. Told her of a mountain workshop, covered in snow and long quiet, and warned of the avalanche his hide had caused on his trip back down. 

She destroyed the lure, for the village’s sake and as a bit of revenge for Shahavad’s ignorance, much to his screech of disapproval.

When he said she’d have to forge a new path up the pass, it was filled with a pettiness all his own.

That didn’t stop her from trotting down the settlement steps, finding a new mount, and bullheadedly making her way to this workshop.

Her job was only half done but the climb she endured was worth the view at the top until the Stormbird made itself known. 

Sneaking through snow bluffs had her leathers wet and uncomfortable, but when the wingbeats faded, she could finally breathe in the beauty from where she stood.

Ankle deep in snow and it was still a marvel to rove over the expanse of the land below. She took in the moment of peace for a selfishly long time before returning to her search. 

“It’s a small hut nestled next to a cliff face,” Shahavad had said, but Aloy thought ‘hut’ could barely describe the structure before her.

It was modest, small for sure, but the wind and ice had carved wood and metal away and left the forge and scrap bare for the elements to reclaim.

Her eye caught on leather as she approached and it was curious that a journal of all things had survived the weather. She turned it this way and that, but it held together so she packed it away and resolved to look at it later once the cold wasn’t biting at her skin.

Getting down the mountain proved easier than climbing it. 

A path made all the difference, so instead of hopping from foothold to foothold, a precarious grip on ice covered rock over an unforgiving canyon, she could take her time at a patient pace, hands warm in the fur lining her armor. The leather of it chaffed in irritating places though and with evening approaching she knew setting up camp would be in her best interests. 

When she reached the base of the mountain path, it yawned open to rocky fields covered in greenery. Patches of trees and flowering blooms dotting the landscape as a river cut a rough swath through it all. It’s currents rapid with the snowmelt, but Aloy caught the pyramidal form of a bonfire not far across it.

As she made her way over, mindful of the water, she noted torchlight sequestered by boulders. Posts drilled into the earth, decorated by ravaged machine carcasses and hollow eye sockets.

“Seriously? Bandits, here?” But for all her grousing her feet had already made up their mind. The campfire and it’s promised warmth, of dry garments and sleep, traded for another windy path of dirt and slate.

If it was bandits, then she had every incentive to scout out where they squatted and root them out if she could. She didn't want another situation like Free Heap. She didn't want a situation where bandits were involved, period. It was the sole sentiment Nil and her could agree on and the thought of the Carja male had a quirk pulling at her lip.

Her mild confusion at bandits, here of all places, still remained. 

“Why would they be here,” mumbled to no one as she eyed the pass and its questionable stability. It didn’t slow her pace, but the prominence of machine carcasses only continued to grow as she climbed. 

Pitchcliff was too far from here to mount an attack against, let alone take over. but the gaping jaws shoved onto pikes, mouths open in eerie silence, served as a warning to something. Or someone.

The wind that blew threw the pass burned at her arms, but the haunting echo they carried through the chassis littering the climb left her twitchy. Bow at the ready, but these were dead. Long dead and picked clean, but as she came over the rise the scene before her said otherwise.

She found cover behind a flat face and with a pitched noise her focus expanded into view and highlighted the hampered form of more than one machine. Weighted down by chains while units patrolled the walls of the sprawling camp before her. All armed with live machines to boot and too many bodies to count and why couldn’t the avalanche have hit _here_?

By then, dusk had thoroughly set in, the sky erupting in purples and blues until black climbed over it all and she was ready, nevermind her issues with why.

It was with practiced ease that she made her way into the tall grass that so graciously matched her mane. Silent steps as she tagged each body that lit up her sight. Machines too, and it was glee that had her lips curved sharply as she overrode the Sawtooth near the camp's entrance.

Between one breath and the next, the snap of chain resounded through the clearing and the Sawtooth was waging war with dozens of men. Claws as sharp as can be and easily finding their way through bandit skin while Aloy picked off what was left.

Be it spear or arrow or claw, each man fell as quick as the last and soon the only sound filling the air was the shuffle of Sawtooth paws through thick snow and Aloy’s controlled breaths that lit up in the night sky.

Puffs of cloud out of measured shoulders as she surveyed the carnage, not a scratch on her save for exhaustion, but the Sawtooth was limping. It and her being the only things left until her eyes found the edge of the camp. 

A shriek, muffled but amplified by the Focus, filled her ears and she cocked her head.

“Unknown signal?” _Helpful_ , she mocked but she approached the door anyways. It swung open with a heavy creak, the smack of it racing down the stairs it revealed. The sensor she met a few steps in was a warning. A wave of sound forceful enough to bruise, but the trigger-happy Oseram that rounded the corner was a promise. 

“Dervahl sends his regards,” and it was for the umpteenth time that day that she dove for cover. His cannon wasn’t for show and he sounded eager to use it.

Aloy hasn’t planned for this. 

Was already pulling her hunting bow out when a heap of teeth and claw jumped over her crouched frame and all but mauled the mercenary to pieces. A battle short-lived and she found herself thankful for her lot in life.

It had its grievances, but this wasn’t one of them.

Cold hands plucked the peculiar plugs at his ears, or what was left of them, off. The sensor and it’s debilitating sound dealt with, but the warble deeper down the stairs had her tense and ready.

The sight Aloy was met with wasn’t one she could prepare for though.

For at the bottom of the steps, beyond a crude cage cracked open, lay the prone form of a woman at the mercy of paralyzing sound.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, with the beginning of term, my return to work, a change in my health, and adopting a starving fish, my life has been bonkers for the past several days. Alas, I am determined and this chapter finally feels ready to post. 
> 
> My overall goal with this fic is to go back and forth with every chapter so we get a full view of the trials, tribulations, and overall impressions and thoughts of both these characters, as this is a duel-protagonist story, so here's my second introductory chapter of sorts. 
> 
> P.S.: Mind the tag updates!!! 
> 
> Enjoy!

_To say yes to life is to say yes to life's experiences._

_~_ me

* * *

**??? POV**

It began with a sear that traveled the length of her spine. Hot and intense and flowing into her skull with a throb she was unable to stop. To shrug off, to rub away when every movement was met with a small twitch instead. Her muscles locked and refusing her command in barely there spasms and she thought she was over this.

She thought that she’d closed her eyes for the last time. Let the dark embrace what was left of her with a hushed promise of peace, and she was waiting with open arms because she remembered. 

Remembered what peace felt like. 

How it made living easy. How it made memory dull. How it made forgetting an option.

But that wasn’t real peace.

Life only offered a clouded version of what peaceful looked like, how it acted. In reality, it was nothing more than a blurred battlefield filled with haze and those waiting for an opportunity. Any fool willing to believe a commodity such as peace existed became prey to that tantalizing lie and the picture it painted.

In life, peace was nonexistent. An illusion.

But not here.

Not in this roving blackness that held nothing but emptiness. A will to just be and when she saw her own opportunity she gripped it tight and fell in because she was _done_.

Done with being alive. Done with existence.

She was done with being defined by a reality made of paralyzing sound, jeers, and violent hands that wouldn’t even let her scream. 

Or so she thought.

The world, it seemed, wanted to remind her that the ability of choice was not exclusively her own. 

And every choice had a consequence.

The consequence of her own was that she couldn’t prevent whatever happened after she opened her arms to inevitable death, so when consciousness graced her once more, it was to a body frozen in place but covered in enough sweat that she felt sticky from it. 

Her face scrunched around the crust in her eyes and it was blatant bewilderment that marred her features when she finally got them open.

A cobblestone roof stared back, gray and glossy from the lighting but otherwise unchanged from the last time she saw it. Her body a limp, heavy weight that ached at every signal to move, but there was a scratch in her skull that said something was off. That there had been a change but pinpointing it proved fruitless when the idea of thinking was met with a blankness as endless as her unconsciousness had been.

She heard shuffling to her side and tried to roll her head to find it. To do something while her brain caught up with being awake again, but she was met with an empty space save for a doorway leading up a set of stone stairs that matched the ceiling. Metal scrap coating the floor around the entrance to this hole she still laid in and it was a familiar sight she’d hope to never see again. 

The shuffling continued. Close, and the shadow of its movement appeared on the wall she had yet to stop looking at. Twisted and mocking in movement that she didn’t possess. 

It was irritating. 

Frustrating to see and unable to do when every signal for action was heard and then promptly ignored by her otherwise rigid form. The taste of it stale on her tongue when _he_ had no problems taking advantage of her vulnerabilities. She’d bite his fingers off it she had to. Almost did, more than once, until he realized that leathers were an ample replacement to fingers.

And she hated it. Hated this immobility because it always came with that wretched sound, a helpless cavity yawning open in her chest at going through that again and she wouldn’t, she couldn’t do this anymore. She was done and she’d kill herself if she had to-

Wait.

Her internal panic screeched to a halt.

The shadow continued to dance on the stone. Patient and tinkering with the soft clink of shards and the telltale sound of wood and she could _hear_ it.

She could hear woody thumps, the soft clink of metal. The telltale rub of wire fastening tight as tools were picked up then set down, and she gasped. A soft, stuttering noise full of relief because she could hear. Could perceive sound beyond the warbling screech of a torturous device that had her writhing on the floor and vulnerable to him and his ilk and she didn’t think she’d miss it this much. 

“You’re awake!” 

The voice echoing in the makeshift workshop she’d known for too long but its tone was pitched. High and excited and her hackles raised. Teeth bared like a cornered beast as footsteps approached her prone form.

This wasn’t Dervahl, that much was clear. 

She didn’t know how, but this new unknown? 

She’d deal with it if it meant she had to bite their throat out. 

She just got her sound back. That alone was enough to make her wild and she’d never let it be taken from her again. 

She’d rather die. 

_You almost did,_ she thought. _You wanted to._

But she clenched her fists anyways. A snarl erupting from her lungs, and the steps faltered in their approach at the ferocity of it.

She wouldn’t let another thing be taken from her. Her ferality warned as much.

“Easy,” drawn out and placating like she was a startled animal to be pacified. “You’re coming out of a fever, and you’re dehydrated and injured so take it slow. I’m not going to hurt you.”

_I’ve heard that before_ , a vicious part of her wanted to spit, but she held her tongue as a barely contained halo of orange entered her limited sightline and she had to blink against it and then blink some more.

Her vision was on the edge of blurry, but last she checked, the Sun didn’t talk.

And surely, what was left of her rational mind reasoned, if it did speak let alone have form, then it wouldn’t be a woman or so the Sun Priests liked to believe.

But there they stood, a figure clad in the colors of sunset. A woman who stood tall over her, face pinched in concern, but no matter. She wouldn’t be cowed that easily.

And then their words started to process. 

Fever. Dehydration. Injured. Coming out of it, and oh. 

That explained why she had the mobile capacity of a rock. 

Which did not bode well for what may come next. Her snarl as loud as she could make it, but the woman only moved to take a seat next to the furs she lay on. 

Deliberately slow in doing so, and she quieted. Her guard was still up, and would probably stay up until she could stand once more but she was exposed and practically defenseless, so the wary look she was still giving was warranted.

“I’m Aloy,” the stranger introduced, putting a name to the face she was peering at. 

Names made speaking easier, but when a canteen floated into view she belatedly realized how hard speaking would be when her throat was raked raw and dry.

The container jostled with fluid, unable to hide her want, and soon the rim was at her cracked lips. Every gulp measured but full in a way that screamed of greed but according to Aloy, she was dehydrated. 

The way she downed the water, smooth in its chilled spring taste, further validated the woman's words.

When the canteen was pulled away, she attempted to chase after it, but the motion pulled at her abdomen. A sharp slice of pain shot through her chest in response. 

Her years as a fighter, a brawler and then some, are what had her breathing through the wave in a steady exhale. Body as limp as she could get it and it was instinct by now to breathe and make every breath count. It’s what kept her strikes strong and her pain at a minimum and here was no different, but there was a pull in her tissue that went more than skin deep so slow and steady would be in her foreseeable future. 

She was not looking forward to it.

“I have something to ease the pain.” An offer she wasn’t expecting, but she gave Aloy a blank look. 

The pain wasn’t the problem.

“You can’t move, I know,” she acknowledged. “Dreamwillow is a medicinal plant that induces numbness and sleep. It’ll help you recover quicker, give you your mobility back since that's what you seem to want to do.”

She wasn’t wrong. 

There was a truth to Aloy’s words, but she just woke up from Sun knows how long of rest. She didn’t have time to wait, to heal, to sleep some more. 

Dervahl had plans, and since he obviously wasn’t here it meant he was elsewhere making good on them.

Nevermind she didn’t know what said plans were. She was awake and had a vague idea so it was her duty to move, to protect who he intended to harm because that much she did know.

But she was no good as she was.

She was no good at all, given how dead she should be. 

Her fingers gripped the fur she felt beneath them. White-knuckled and bubbling with frustration at herself. At her arrogance. At what it might cost her.

She wasn’t one to cry. Never had been, but there was a helpless clog in her throat and she knew what she needed to do. Knew what decision to make.

Her nod was small, missable, but Aloy caught it and moved to presumably gather the medicinal herb. The gritty grind of plant matter on stone filled the room, and soon Aloy was back with the canteen. The woman leaned in, but paused. Their eyes met and it took her an embarrassing amount of time to understand that Aloy was confirming her decision. 

She was giving her an out. A second one.

It was tempting to say no. To let go and come what may but she’d done that already. A part of her had denied even death and crawled back to life and that’s why she lay here, unmoving and in pain.

So no. 

She wouldn’t let chance or whims be her guide again. Not with this. Not with what she put at risk. 

It wasn’t just about her anymore, about what she wanted, and every decision had consequences. 

She’s alive and drawing breath and she’ll deal with the consequences of this one and any that come after as a result.

She gave a second nod. Firm in her choice and Aloy helped her drink the warm, bitter-infused liquid passed cracked lips and a feeble hope that she chose right this time.

There was a faint thump from where the empty canteen met the floor.

“It won’t take long for you to feel it,” Aloy offered as she sat back and waited. “I’ll be here when you wake,” added after a moment of silence. Her face pulled into a sincere smile at the promise.

The warmth in her belly had calmed her, but the words acted as a balm to her tired mind. Any leftover pain and agitation smoothed away at the possibility of waking to something other than an endless stream of torture.

To someone less willing to cause it.

A someone who didn’t even know her name.

“Ersa,” she said into the waiting quiet. A slur on the end that’d make a drunk feel sober, but she felt ready, in more ways than one. “The name’s Ersa.”

Too bad she missed the gaping shock that stared back in reply.

* * *

**Ersa POV**

There’s a refreshed sense to her bones when she wakes the second time. 

A clear-headedness that chased the last bits of fog from her brain, but the slick stick of skin to bare skin reminded her of the fever she endured. An uncomfortable coating of dried sweat that had her all but peeling her arms away from her body, but she could move her arms this time. 

She could move all of her this time.

Which meant that while sitting up was a chore full of hissing, it was a chore her arms in all their shaky glory could handle. Her rise slow but she found herself sitting up and taking in her surroundings with a clarity she hadn’t possessed before.

The workshop remained largely untouched. An unsurprising find as she eyed the heaps of scrap metal and miscellaneous machine parts that sat about while a stack of leftover crates was shoved into the corner. 

Dervahl’s workspace tended to reflect the mind of the man and her stay here had solidified that in the two years that hadn’t seen each other, little had actually changed. His thoughts sporadic like his inventions and the haze he’d enter when building. Although they were focused into a vengeful point, how he operated remained the same, and that was reflected in the chaotic array he left his workshop in.

This room was full of everything that he was but devoid of him altogether.

She wouldn’t be sitting here otherwise.

Here being on the back of boar pelts. Tough but a comforting kind of warmth as she scrutinized the space. 

It was just a room, a place to store parts and supplies. 

_And you_ , a cruel voice whispered in her ear as she found the familiar sight of gilded cage bars.

Smeared browns colored the stone wall of the cell. Pieces of cloth hung loose on the floor. White linen marred and left in abandoned shreds as she had been. All evidence of her stay in that room to nowhere, but there was an otherworldly quality to it now.

To see what she never expected to see. 

An outsider to her demise. 

The cage door thrown wide. Her body lying limp and dying on the floor. Shivers wracking her every muscle and it was pitiful. Pitiful to look upon and see the small puddle of crusted wounds and idiocy she had become by then. Unable to move, unable to do anything but take her pain and get lost in it as Dervahl’s device pressed down on her.

Except now the workshop was filled with silence. 

The room wider for it as the hollowed-out casing of a Longleg head cawed to the sky.

A smile curled onto her face.

Someone had caved it in. Right at the middle and metal pieces and splinters now adorned the floor around the ruined facade as it brayed with silence to a ceiling that would never help it.

“I did that,” said from behind and she flinched. Body tensing until a semi-familiar mane of red hair came into view.

_Aloy_ , Ersa reminded herself. _This was Aloy._

Her armor gave faint clacks as the metal plating moved with her across the room, but soon the woman was leaning against the table she had mostly caved in. 

“I couldn't find an off switch,” she supplied with a mirthful shrug.

_Young_ was her only thought as she replied. “It didn’t deserve one.” Bitterness coating every word but the curl of satisfaction at its ruined state remained. 

She had wanted to do it. Take hammer to steel and shatter it, but this was okay. At least it was dead in every way that counted.

“You feeling better,” she heard after a beat. Aloy’s face a picture of gentle despite the armor she sported and Ersa nodded.

“I am. Thank you.” Her tone full of gratitude and Aloy smiled, loose braids rolling onto her chest as she braced her palms against the table.

“Good,” she said on an exhale. “I’m not the only one who’ll be glad you are.”

Ersa frowned, about to ask what she meant when she felt a tug. The foreign sensation of something rubbing against her face and she reached up, trying to find the source when Aloy gave an alarmed noise. A flurry of movement to halt her curious fingers, but it was too late.

The smooth edge and rumpled ridges of a wrap met her hand. A stark contrast to the warm cheek she bumped as she explored her face for the first time since waking up. 

How had she forgotten?

Remembering made her sick, that's how.

She repressed the urge to gag and promptly retch as she followed a thick swath of wraps over her left eye, to her ear, and back around across her forehead. More than one layer but she could feel underneath it. Could make the skin move, could pull it and scrunch it despite an obvious protest at doing so, but there was one thing she couldn’t feel. Something that refused to move just as her body had before. 

Namely because it wasn’t _there_ to move.

“What did you do?” The tremor in her hands mirrored in her voice, but her gaze was steady as she pinned Aloy to the table with it. 

The air grew hot with tension but to her credit, the red-haired woman only sighed as if expecting this reaction. Her earlier warning abandoned as she settled back against the cracked wood. 

“You were hot with fever when I found you. An infection and your eye was the source,” she explained, gesturing to the thick bandage and what it covered. “I removed it.”

It shouldn’t surprise her. Shouldn’t be a shock that infection bred in an injury caused by an offcut piece of iron that carved through her face at the hands of someone who called it justified. A someone who threw muddied rags slick with oil at her for his efforts and it was the best she had. 

She didn’t have a choice but to suffocate on the fumes and staunch the flow. 

So her trembling? Her shock? 

The uneven inhale that stuttered like a dying machine?

It fell away. 

Escaped through a breath that took all of her and then some. 

Smooth as his stink slick oil, but there was a numbness to her that stuck. A blank space full of nothing that even Dreamwillow or her near-death experience could match, but she knew it’d hit her later. That reality would set it like it always does, but later was fine. 

She could handle losing an eye if it meant she was alive enough to feel the loss. 

If it meant she was alive enough to kill him for it later. 

For now, she needed to focus. As hard as that would be now that every shift drew her attention to the itching cavity on her face, but she centered herself, remembered the conversation at hand, and asked, “What did you mean earlier?”

The change abrupt and Aloy startled at it. 

_Good_.

Aloy’s eyes widened and Ersa got a front row seat as she all but deflated a moment later. 

But she didn’t answer. Instead, she turned and moved to the workbench. It’s place nestled in the corner near the staircase and Ersa shifted to follow her. Aloy’s every step slow as if this, too, she was expecting.

And that made her nervous.

She didn’t like not knowing. She hated lies even more. 

Still, all she could do was wait and watch as Aloy rummaged through the contents of the workbench. The evident clatter of stone pestles and carved wood being shoved around as she searched for something. 

An “ah” marked its apparent finding and soon the flame-haired woman was crouched in front of Ersa, expression serious as she asked, “Dervahl did this to you, didn’t he?”

Asked ahead of nothing and she stiffened at their sudden proximity, but the phrasing was funny for someone who sounded like they already knew the answer.

“Yes,” she replied anyway, unsure in how, exactly, this answered her own question.

She ignored the needle of unease slowly burying itself in her chest.

“The same one who built machine lures?”

A quizzical look made itself at home next to that curdle of unease.

“He made lures,” she said to her increasingly confused frown. “They send signals strong enough to attract machine hordes. Pitchcliff was nearly overwhelmed by Glinthawks due to one. I found a Stormbird attracted to another set, where I found this journal. The first one.” She holds it up for Ersa to see and lets her take it when she reaches for it.

The scrawl she finds inside is the same. High on the corners and too sharp and his discovery of the lure reads exactly how the parlay she received at the Sun Palace did. 

Manic but gleeful.

Ersa would’ve crumpled it, burned it in brazier like she did his joke of a letter that helped land her here, but Aloy wasn’t done.

“That same Dervahl,” said as she offers the second journal to Ersa, “has secured blaze shipments into Meridian.”

Her fingers freeze in their attempt to grab the worn leather under them. Stiff and cold as an echo of promise flashes across her memory. 

_“I will force Avad to watch as the smoke darkens his precious sun.”_

The blood flees from her veins. Her needle-sharp unease pouring into a stricken horror that’s clear for anyone to see, but there it is. Written in patchy sentences and signed like some trophy to be proud of. 

Meridian. Avad. _Her_.

All parsed out and oozing bloodlust, and it was another sign that she failed to read the warnings on. 

Of all his raving, what she could hear and see beyond the shriek in her bones hadn’t made any sense. 

And yet, they had. He had meant it, literally. 

By the Sun, if he succeeded Meridian would _burn_. 

She could already smell the sickly sweet char of blaze crisp flesh on a pyre.

And since he wasn’t here, it meant he was already there. 

“Meridian is closed, Ersa.”

Aloy reading her dread and Ersa’s head shot up.

Aloy had sat herself down at some point between handing her the journals and her fit of alarm. Sitting so close to one another, she searched her face for any sign of a bluff. Any notion of dishonesty for what she was proposing was absurd.

“I’ve met Erend, Ersa. He spoke highly of you, his sister. He was away from Meridian when I arrived. Out looking for you. He’ll be glad to know you’re alive.”

“You expect me to believe that,” she questioned. The definition of derisive as she watched Aloy with purposeful intensity. 

She didn’t know this woman. Didn’t know this stranger with Nora armor and a supposed streak of kindness, so why should she believe that this woman was spouting truth? That Meridian, the Carja capital, was closed? That she knew her brother?

Her words could be nothing more than a fabricated lie meant to lull her into arrogant ease, but she refused. 

She refused to let her current failures dull her senses into complacency any longer.

But open honesty only stared back at her. 

Aloy made no motion to move away as Ersa spit her words, had peered at her with obvious contempt. Had practically called her a liar when this same woman had helped her. Healed her and informed her, however limited that information was, and for what? 

“What do you gain from this? Why do you care?” Less sharp and more fragile but she needed to know. 

“I’m not going to stand by while innocent people are killed. If Meridian is a target and I can do something to help, then I will.”

She studied Aloy. 

The red framing her face made the severity of her statement more pronounced, more believable. 

“Then we’re leaving,” she announced with an authority borne from being Captain of the Vanguard. 

The decision made and she’d snort at the dumbfounded turn of Aloy’s mouth if she wasn’t so busy trying to stand. 

Aloy’s hands coming up to hinder or help in a spray of limbs, but they do neither as her muscles give sharp pangs at her will to extend them. 

Only when she manages to rise, standing for the first time in too long, she realizes the furs that covered her have fallen away. Rolled onto the floor and she sees that she’s stark bare and ready to go nowhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a helluva intro from Ersa, am I right? I can't wait to reveal the history I've given this underrated character because I have so much planned XD
> 
> Thank you for reading, and again, if the pacing is off, or something seems overused or dull or anything else, then please say so! I often scrutinize my work to a ridiculous degree, it's part of being a perfectionist of sorts, but I'm unlearning that nasty little habit and every little bit helps.
> 
> Anyways, hope you liked it and thanks again!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! :D
> 
> If you notice any OCC-ness, have any suggestions, or generally feel the content is rushed/not explanatory enough, then let me know! Pacing and I are entering a tentative relationship and I hope we can figure it out, but some help would not go amiss!


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